Portugal PM demands answers as deadly forest fires still rage

PEDROGAO GRANDE, Portugal: Portugal’s prime minister led calls on Tuesday to find out why a highway now dubbed the "road of death" -- where most of the 64 victims of a giant forest fire perished -- had not been blocked off, as questions mounted over the disaster management response.

More than 1,000 firefighters were still battling to control the flames which broke out in the central Pedrogao Grande region at the weekend and spread at breakneck speed to neighbouring areas.

A water bomber crashed near the village of Ouzenda while fighting the blaze, a spokesman for the civil protection service told AFP. He was unable to give further immediate details about the incident.

Spain, France and Italy have sent a total of 11 water bombers to help the operation.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa sought "immediate explanations" why the national 236 highway "had not been closed to traffic" and why it had been signalled by gendarmes as an alternative route after a nearby road had been sealed off, according to the Lusa national news agency.

Forty-seven of the 64 forest fire victims died on the N236 which has been branded the "road of death" or the "road of hell" by the local media.

Thirty of them burned to death in their cars, trapped by the flames.

A survivor told Portuguese television that gendarmes directed them to the N236 as an alternative to the nearby IC8 route which had been closed and which the gendarmes used themselves.

"When we arrived at the IC8, they told us we couldn’t pass and directed us towards the N236. We thought that the road was safe but it wasn’t," said Maria de Fatima.

"We couldn’t see anything, we couldn’t even see the road, just the flames and the pine trees falling on the road."

Costa also sought explanations into why the emergency services communications network had been interrupted amid media reports that the scorching heat had damaged antennae.

The blaze around Pedrogao Grande was expected to be under control shortly, civil protection chief Vitor Vaz Pinto said Tuesday.

As water-bombing planes made regular passes over the flames, there were growing suggestions that forestry practices and outdated emergency planning might have contributed to the disaster.

Some people in the hamlets scattered through the rural region were unhappy with the response of the emergency services.

Father Jose Gomes, the priest in Figueiro dos Vinhos, told AFP that some locals had "lacked the support of the firefighters, and sometimes even water".

"There is a spirit of revolt towards the emergency services," he said.

Pensioner Jose Antonio Jesus Marques said he had been told on Saturday that the fire was about eight kilometres away from his home in Carreira.

"I went to see it and in five minutes the fire was about 800 metres (yards) from my house," the 66-year-old said.